As French President François Hollande outlined new taxes and spending cuts while promoting reforms to turn the economy around – word leaked out that France’s wealthiest man, Bernard Arnault, was heading for Belgium in a rumored tax dodge. At first, the timing could not appear to have been worse for the national morale and Mr. Hollande. …he will hit those with direct salaries over 1 million euros ($1.3 million) with a 75 percent tax. The French have not forgotten the national shame when British Prime Minister David Cameron told the world from Mexico in early summer that London was “rolling out the red carpet” for wealthy French seeking tax havens. Yet, instead, in a national spasm of pique, France spent all day making accusations of “traitor” and “ingrate” at the rich guy – Mr. Arnault, worth $41 billion. …The anti-Arnault frenzy spurred far-left guru Jean-Luc Mélenchon to call him a “parasite,” and far-right darling Marianne Le Pen to proclaim “scandalous” what appears to be a financial exile. A screaming headline in Libération – “Get Lost You Rich Idiot”… Hollande yesterday said the fashion tycoon, who also left France for the US during the last Socialist government of François Mitterand, “should have measured what it means to apply for citizenship to another country. In this period, we need to appeal to patriotism.”

Leonid Brezhnev was General Secretary of the Communist Party and supreme leader of the Soviet Union from 1964 until his death in 1982. He produced my favorite quote at the Soviet Union Communist Party Congress in 1972:

“The fundamental problem we face is that we can only distribute and consume what is actually produced.”

Imagine the grandeur of the event. Communist Party leaders from throughout the Soviet Union were seated before Brezhnev in a large convention hall. This was similar to a US national political convention, but somber and powerful. The Party controlled all aspects of Soviet life. They listened in deep respect to every word of their totalitarian ruler.

Brezhnev made the above statement. It was the equivalent of saying with heavy meaning, “Gentlemen, the fundamental problem we face is that 2 + 2 = 4”.

It illustrates the amazing fact that entire countries go crazy, the leaders unable to see the reality that is plainly in front of their eyes, until crisis forces them to respond.

George Orwell: We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.

The feeling of decline is quite palpable now with almost daily acts of suicidal desperation popping up throughout the western world. The pitchforks are fast moving towards self destruction.

Virtually all actions implemented on both sides of the Atlantic nowadays have the net effect of clobbering the most productive in order to insulate the less productive from the consequences of mediocrity. Under the resulting flatter effort-reward curves systemic mediocrity sets in and is accelerating. The western world is coming apart. All this against the even more momentous backdrop of three billion emerging world citizens who are given their first economic freedoms in generations and are now growing at rates four times those of the west. Convergence i.e. assimilation of the west into average worldwide prosperity levels is inevitable, fast, and well under way.

The western world voter lemmings are cementing the foundations of their decline. For democracy’s sake I hope some voters in some countries escape this regression into mandatory collectivism and central planning. But I have yet to see any sizable democracies do that. The US could one time be counted upon to play that role, alas American culture has converged to the rest of the world past the tipping point.

Such hopes in collectivism did not end well in the past, including two world wars and countless purges in the name of mandatory solidarity and the common good. It will not end well this time either. Majorities, seems like eternal suckers, do not see that this is the same devil of mandatory collectivism dressed in early twenty first century clothes. The lemmings will, once again, eat the apple of an easier, fairer collective path to prosperity– which will only prove systemically more difficult degenerative and miserous.

The movie plays once again..
Brace yourselves for the great decline. While it is certain that top levels of prosperity are impossible on unmotivating average effort-reward curves, it is difficult to predict how decline will unfold. Whether as a mostly orderly constant erosion of relative standard of living, or as a series of more intense crises separated by relative calm or a combination of the two. I tend to thing the last two modes of decline are more likely. Populations will need the relative calm to regain the delusional hope that perhaps things have finally turned the corner and better times are ahead. Alas they won’t. Top world prosperity on mediocre effort-reward curves is impossible. Europe, and even more the US, have a long way to go down squandering past exceptional ism. But it will be quick! Remember, the pace of human changes is irreversibly becoming faster and faster. Declines and reversals of fortunes that used to take centuries, will unfold within one generation in this early 21st century. Well before we experience another half degree of global warming on Al Gore’s hockey stick, the pecking order of the western citizen in the world will have changed dramatically. And not for the better. The western world will have faded into relative insignificance, ironically, in part due to its delusional dream of prosperity through mandatory expensive decarbonization, a problem to which our descendants a century from now, with double our lifespans, seven times our wealth, and unimaginable things available to buy with that wealth, will resoundly laugh at. The way we now utter codesending laughs of superiority at our ancestors one hundred years ago who died at thirty two from tubercolosis while worrying that the world would run out of salt with its many then uses. Problem was solved, salt has become ever more plentiful, salt is no longer used for many of the things it was, and even if salt went away, at our current levels of prosperity and longevity it would not be but a minor inconvenience. How did we get here so fast? In large part, through our ancestors using the salt rather than worrying about its extinction. Many many things that intellectuals hold dear today, will look downtrodden silly a century from now.

[…] The French Version of Atlas Shrugged « International Liberty. Share this:TwitterRedditFacebookEmailPrintDiggStumbleUponLike this:LikeBe the first to like this. This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. ← Nicholas Vardy’s The Global Guru […]

[…] Hollande’s policies already are having an impact. France’s richest person apparently isn’t very “patriotic” and has decided to move where he will be allowed to keep more than 20 percent of his annual income. Rate this:Share […]

[…] top tax rate? This is a spectacularly misguided policy, and it’s already resulting in an exodus of entrepreneurs and other successful people. But just as I enjoy have California as a negative role model, I like […]

[…] top tax rate? This is a spectacularly misguided policy, and it’s already resulting in an exodus of entrepreneurs and other successful people. But just as I enjoy have California as a negative role model, I like […]

[…] taxpayers have the gall (no pun intended) to object to this level of fleecing. Famous actors and successful entrepreneurs are among those saying Au Revoir and moving to jurisdictions that have less punitive tax […]

[…] top tax rate? This is a spectacularly misguided policy, and it’s already resulting in an exodus of entrepreneurs and other successful people. But just as I enjoy have California as a negative role model, I like […]

[…] Simply stated, the folks riding in the wagon keep voting to impose heavier burdens on those pulling the wagon. That eventually leads to economic ruin, and it leads to trouble even faster when the people pulling the wagon have the opportunity to move across borders. […]

[…] it’s not just England. Other high-income French citizens, such as Gerard Depardieu and Bernard Arnault, are escaping to Belgium (which is an absurdly statist nation, but at least doesn’t impose a […]

[…] it’s not just England. Other high-income French citizens, such as Gerard Depardieu and Bernard Arnault, are escaping to Belgium (which is an absurdly statist nation, but at least doesn’t impose a […]